"What it must look and smell like when a movie brain vomits. Truly worthless."
-Variety

Monday, January 30, 2012

Auteur Watch - Charlton and Fraser C. Heston

"It is NOT a world of men, 'Machine'!" The usual suspects? The closing of the American frontier, computers, and... let's say refrigerators. Why, without refrigerators, men would have to go out with bowie knives and chase down a buffalo to get their meat fix! But thanks to American Exceptionalism, all we have to do is drive to the store and buy it... even though a real man would probably steal his steak. As for me, I've got guys driving up in vans trying to shove meat down my throat. I don't even need to drive to the store! On the other hand, they only show up every two months or so. So persistent are they. And they never have Tofurky Italian sausage that I used to eat way too much of. Where was I? Oh, right, the Hestons. Well, after profiling the Scheinmans last week, I just KNEW my list of auteur siblings/parents was incomplete. Charlton probably directed something... there you go. Mother Lode. Long before the Coen brothers change the directing dynamic forever, the Hestons did it first. Now every two bit internet millionaire with a brother thinks he can get behind the Canon HD video camera and play God with cast and crew's lives. Then it was the 90s, and young Fraser had to go to Scheinman and beg for work. Well, how about a Stephen King adaptation? Those are still hot, right? Tell you what. We've got Frank Darabont doing the classy Stephen King stuff, so why don't you do one of his dreck books? Here's 20 million dollars and the full resources of Castle Rock at your disposal; go make us a damn hit movie! He didn't completely a-hole his way out of the biz on that one, but Alaska finished off both Hestons for good, at least in terms of the silver screen. Of course, Charlton himself did appear in that Michael Moore documentary! And that cameo in the 2001 Planet of the Apes reboot. But like Michael Schroeder before him, relatively young Fraser decided to take a break anyway. Well, he was overdue, and frankly he just doesn't fit in with all these young punks running Hollywood nowadays. Off to the ranch in Montana. Unfortunately, Schroeder beat him to the punch, coming out of the retirement coma first with Man in the Chair, but ol' Fraser's got an ace up his sleeve! Something called The Search for Michael Rockefeller is currently in production, and I see that Fraze is proving himself a double threat on this one: director AND narrator! Well, the Rockefeller name is almost as iconic as the Heston name, but I guess it'll have to do. A toast to Fraser C. Heston! You've done your dad proud.